


Rise Again

by Sparcina



Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Drama & Romance, Good Loki (Marvel), Hugs, Kissing, Love with a capital L, M/M, Mutual Attraction, One-Sided Attraction, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-15 07:35:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16058504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sparcina/pseuds/Sparcina
Summary: When Loki walks into his life, Peter realizes that love doesn’t have to be one-sided.





	Rise Again

**Author's Note:**

> This pairing needs more love! xxx

When Peter became aware of his feelings for Tony Stark, he was twelve.

He knew what love was. He felt strongly for people who were dead, and others who were alive and able to enjoy that love. Uncle Ben and Aunt May were two such people. Ned, his first friend in high school, and Michelle, the girl who’d made him realize his potential as a person beyond Spider-Man, had also laid claim to his heart. Peter knew that loving so many so fiercely, _thoroughly_ , made him vulnerable. He realized it at sixteen, when he confessed his love to Tony.

He’d been head over heels in love with his mentor for four full years by then, and in aw of the older man’s brain and determination for twice that long. He’d also discovered just how different this particular form of love was when awoke one morning with Tony’s smile branded on his eyelids and a painfully hard erection. _Perfect, kid,_ those words his mentor man used so often towards him, filled his mind, so soft and gentle and without a single pause between them, and before Peter could even touch himself, he was spilling himself on his belly, stifling a moan in the guest room he’d been offered at the Tower. In Tony’s home.

He knew that Tony couldn’t possibly return his feelings. Deep down inside him, he knew it, but he couldn’t help the way he felt, and after one year of struggling with what _could_ and what _was_ , he felt stretched too thin to go on pretending. On one of those nights he just couldn’t seem to find sleep, he went to the workshop.

“Hey, kid,” his mentor said, waving at him with that smile that Peter sometimes imagined was just for him.

“Hey.” Peter opened his mouth and felt the dryness in his mouth, the wild beating of his heart. His palms were sweaty at his sides, his heightened senses completely disrupted by those three words he couldn’t stop thinking. Three words that got stuck in his throat. “Can I talk to you? It won’t be long.”

“Sure, kid.” A look of concern passed over Tony’s face. “Is something wrong? Tell me.”

Was there something wrong with love? Peter didn’t think so, and so he walked towards the man who’d been his sole focus for eight whole years.

 _I love you_.

The words rolled off his tongue like a prayer, but Tony Stark was no god, only a man with his own feelings, and the ability to make Peter either the happiest youth in the world, or the small crack in his heart expand until all that was left was the bleak knowledge that he wasn’t enough.

“Why don’t you sit with me, kid?”

Peter felt his heart shatter as he saw his answer in Tony’s eyes.

“Sure,” he said in a whisper, smile wavering.

He knew love, and love _hurt_.

*

Knowing that Tony wouldn’t return his love didn’t make the rejection any less painful. The morning after his confession, he cried until he fell asleep, and when he woke up late in the afternoon feeling even more tired than before, he forced himself to join the others in the communal kitchen. Sitting at the counter and eating something he could neither taste nor name, he returned Tony’s tentative smile. It was by no means a happy smile, and it fooled no one, but Peter didn’t love Tony because Tony loved him back; that wasn’t how love worked. He loved Tony completely selflessly, and as such, could only wish for the older man to be happy.

He continued to love. He continued to love Ben, May, Ned and Michelle, and to a lesser extent, some of the Avengers and other kids at school. He nurtured those various shades of love as he grew up, and if he had to patch night after night his bleeding heart with the certainty that Tony’s rejection didn’t make him less worthy or rob him of his ability to love, he found the following year and a half particularly hard. Tony tried to help by pretending nothing had ever happened, and for both their sakes, Peter played along. Love wasn’t about being loved in return, he repeated himself day after day.

And night after night, he dreamt of an improbable cure to the hole in his heart.

*

When Peter turned twenty-one, Loki came to live in the Tower.

Peter was still in love with Tony, but he’d made his peace with his unrequited feelings, despite and beyond the lingering pain. He knew Tony liked him, even loved him in a platonic way, and he’d found some comfort in that knowledge. He’d been given his own set of rooms a year prior and spent a lot of time in them, arranging everything to his liking and studying hard, acutely aware that being accepted at MIT wasn’t the same thing as remaining there.

_*_

Loki and Tony were both very similar and very different, and yet it was their differences that first drew Peter to him.

At first, he’d been wary around the god, aware of what had transpired during the Battle of New York and more than a little angry that such a threat got to live so close to Tony, but words were whispered around the Tower, _torture_ and _unwillingness,_ and Peter, being the forgiving being his Uncle Ben had taught him to be from beyond the grave, became close to Loki faster than any other Avenger.

Loki, it turned out, liked to dance.

“Would you like to join me, little one?”

Ever since they’d struck their first awkward conversation, Loki had taken on calling him that. The fact that Peter didn’t mind and didn’t feel the need to give the god a nickname in return had surprised Loki and ultimately worked in his favor. Loki expected people to be mean to him.  

It was a good thing, then, that Peter wasn’t mean by nature and could see past the veneer of contempt and wariness that Loki used like a shield.

“Dance?” he said, echoing the god’s words. Lifting his head from his biology book, he saw Loki looking at him with that quiet amusement that he rarely showed others.

“Yes, dance.”

Peter thought the god looked very handsome in all that black and dark green leathers, and as he tended to be around Loki, he spoke his mind and told him so. When Loki’s eyes brightened, Peter dropped his book and rose from the couch, taking the offered hand.

Loki was the god of mischief, lies and chaos, but as far as twenty-one-year-old Peter was concerned, Loki was also the god of sensuality. He moved like he was made of water and fire, every graceful motion kindling the awe slowly blooming in Peter’s chest. Peter knew that he, too, could move, but surely his agility didn’t amount to grace?

He felt himself blush under Loki’s quiet scrutiny and missed a step.

Loki caught him effortlessly and led him on to the exotic rhythm filling the room. Loki’s living room. Peter wasn’t sure when he’d started spending so much time here, but he enjoyed the peacefulness brought about by Loki’s taste and imagination. He liked the scent, sweet and spicy, that was unique to Loki’s quarters.

He liked to see Loki whenever he looked up, just like now, even if he was still blushing, more self-aware than he’d been in a very long time… ever since he’d confessed his love to Tony, actually.

“Being led comes naturally to you,” Loki whispered, leaning in close to him. “You are graceful in that role, as you are in others.”

Their noses touched. Peter could feel Loki’s cool breath on his lips and shivered at the realization that Loki must be feeling just as unsettled as him, just as _captivated_ , for his control over his own body temperature to slip. The conversation about Loki’s true origins hadn’t gone so well, but in the end, it was what had brought down the last wall of the god’s fortress.

“I just stumbled,” he croaked. “That is not… graceful.”

Loki smiled, and their lips almost touched. “Ah, that much is true, but then you always think too much. Can you just…”

He spun Peter around without warning. Peter yelped in surprise, but managed to keep his balance and turn on his heels to face Loki again.

“… let the past behind and the future alone, to enjoy the present as it is, instead of how it could be?”

“I can’t help it,” Peter heard himself saying. The hands on his shoulder and lower back felt cool, but he felt hot and feverish, and melted entirely when a pair of soft lips brushed his own, gentle and undemanding.

He felt hot and feverish, and then he completely melted in Loki’s arms, because cool lips brushed his own, soft and undemanding.

“Perhaps I can help, then.”

Peter grabbed Loki’s shoulders as he knees threatened to give. He hadn’t felt this exposed, this vulnerable, since he’d been sixteen. His heart soared almost violently as he spied the softness etched into Loki’s sharp features, and the residual pain from the scars left by Tony’s rejection seemed to fade as the softness morphed into something stronger, more intense, that happened to match the joy he felt spreading thorough his body.

“I love you,” he blurted out, knowing it was the truth and yet surprised by it, as if he’d been cast out of his body and had just returned to find a blazing fire in a hearth he’d left dark with ashes. “And I- It is ok if…” He trailed off, his heart racing about in his chest. A sick feeling uncoiled in his belly, but still he relished the pressure of Loki’s hands on him. 

“Are you so afraid that your feelings might not be returned?” Loki whispered, his mouth hovering just in front of his, their bodies so close Peter could taste the pang of leather on his tongue. “Don’t be, little one.”

Then he kissed him fully, plundering his mouth like he meant to eat him from the inside out. Peter kissed him back with fervor, trying not to feel complexed by the obvious gap in their experience. He was barely twenty-one; Loki was lived for more than two _millennia._ How could he possibly measure up to that?

Loki bit down his lower lip, startling a gasp out of Peter.

“I told you to stop thinking so much, little one.”

“You didn’t exactly say that,” Peter replied with renewed confidence, curling a strand of black hair around his finger and pulling Loki in for another kiss. “And you do help. I’m just bad at emptying my mind.”

“Then we’d better practice some more, don’t you think?”

Peter laughed. He felt warm and safe in Loki’s arms. It was the kind of safety that no amount of physical strength or any superpower could bring him.

“I love you, little one. _Peter_.”

Loki held him tightly as he cried.

“They are… tears of joy,” Peter explained between sobs, shivering as Loki’s hand on his shoulder moved to his nape and started rubbing small soothing circles there. “I am not s-sad.”

“I know.”

They kissed again. When they fell on the couch in a tangle of limbs and Peter deepened the kiss, Loki still held him. He didn’t let go once Peter fell asleep, and he still had one arm wrapped around his middle when Peter woke up to the most peaceful morning he’d ever known.

*

They quickly took on to sharing a bed, even if it was only for sleeping. Loki had made it clear that while he desired Peter, he would let the youth set the pace, and for a few weeks, Peter took things slow, not initiating anything beyond kisses and a few caresses about the waist.

His decision to didn’t stem from a lack of lust; most mornings, he had to go and take care of himself in the bathroom. He knew that Loki knew, and he appreciated that the god didn’t ask any questions.

He was torn. He loved Loki so very, very much, he loved his mind, his body he’d only got to feel over leather, he loved everything about him, and yet some nights he would dream of Tony, and some mornings he would wake up hard, chest tight and heart aching, the taste of guilt so similar to bile at the back of his throat.

How could he be so _selfish_? he thought then, looking at Loki curled on to his side, facing him, _trusting_ him. He’d thought he knew love, but apparently, romantic love was much more complicated than he’d anticipated. He couldn’t love two beings with such an intensity, couldn’t split that kind of love like he did his affection between his friends, or his fondness between May and Ben. Loki had to go through many a betrayal in his life; Peter couldn’t do that to him.

Then again, love wasn’t about being happy, was it? If Loki was happier with someone else who truly loved him, and _only_ him, then Peter would be happy for him. He really would.

He didn’t notice he was crying until a thumb brushed his cheek.

“Still thinking too much, aren’t you, little one?”

“I-” Peter looked away; he couldn’t bear the affection in Loki’s eyes. “I- There’s something I- I’m so sorry, Loki, I don’t deserve-”

“Peter.”

“Yes?”

One moment, Loki was lying on his side, head propped on one hand, and the next, he was sitting in front of Peter’s prostrate form and lifting his chin, wiping away other stray tears.

“Is this about Anthony?”

Peter felt like all the air in his lungs had been punched out of him. “How do you- I never-”

“I believe you will never truly fall out of love with him, my love.”

It was the first time Loki used that particular endearment, but Peter was too confused by the other part of the sentence to recognize the bubbling warmth in his chest for what it was: hope.

“I’m so sorry,” was all he could say. “So sorry that I can’t be-”

Loki pulled him into his lap and closed his long arms around his shivering form. “You can, and you are, who and what we both need you to be, Peter. Don’t apologize. After millennia of questioning the very nature of existence, I can assure you that love is not something you can control. It chooses you.”

*

Later that day, after an intense training session with Loki who, Peter strongly suspected, had tried to tire his body to free his mind, he lay on the grass in a park nearby, staring at the ever-changing shape of the clouds. Loki’s words from this morning echoed in his ears, causing rusted gears to turn again, thoughts to take shape, conclusions to replace questions and bouts.

Peter touched the green bracelet fastened on his wrist. One moment later, Loki appeared at his side, invisible to all eyes but his. Peter saw a flicker of hesitation on Loki’s face and let out the words that would make things right again.

“You are right,” he said, taking hold of Loki’s hands, unlocking the diversion spell that would make him also invisible to other people. “I’m just-” He huffed out a sigh. “I just wish I could forget about- You wouldn’t happen to know how, would you?”

Loki shook his head. “Your love for him shaped you, little one. I don’t want you any other way.”

Peter grabbed a handful of Loki’s leather tunic. Love burnt in his veins, fierce and hot, possessive in a way it had never got to express itself for Tony. “God, I love you, Loki.” He tiptoed and reached for Loki’s mouth, which yielded easily, those cool lips parting to welcome his tongue.

Another kind of warmth rushed through him as Loki lifted him off the ground in one graceful show of strength. Keeping him balanced with one hand, the god fisted the other in Peter’s hair, tilting his head back slightly. A moan tumbled from Peter’s lips, and then a gasp, at the sensation of the god’s erection pushing against his clothed ass. His own cock stiffened in interest.

Loki’s laugh, low and full of promises, made him fully hard. Peter had to close his eyes as Loki tugged at his lower lip, playing with it until the ambers in his loins turned into fireworks of divine proportions.

“Will you now tell me why you hide in the bathroom to take care of your needs while you could easily let me use my fingers and mouth to bring you pleasure? I know you are shy, but you are not _that_ shy.”

Peter hid his face in the crook of Loki’s shoulder. “You know the answer to that one,” he said, his tone both accusatory and amused. Embarrassment mingled with the lust and love firing up through the entire length his body. “Do I really have to say it?”

“I do not know,” Loki replied in his ear. “Would you like me to bring you back to my, ah, _our_ quarters, and let you have the use of my bathroom once again? I do enjoy walking in to the heady scent of your pleasure, my love.”

“Oh my god,” Peter whimpered. He could feel the blush spread down to his chest and to the top of his cheeks. All those times… “I was… feeling guilty,” he admitted. “Because of Tony.”

“And there is no other reason why you’ve hidden away those sweet moans?”

“Yes,” Peter gritted between his teeth, arousal growing, embarrassment receding. “And my moans aren’t _sweet_.”

“They are to me,” Loki purred. “I’ve listened to you as you tried to keep silent. A normal human wouldn’t have heard you, but I, little one, have come to know the variation in them so well that I time my own release with yours _every time_.”

Peter had not even been aware that he was close, but between one moment and the next he was convulsing in Loki’s arms and coming in hot spurts, painting the inside of his pants white. Loki bit down his neck, hard, and suddenly he, too, achieved orgasm. Awestruck, Peter pulled back a little to better stare at the god.

“You are devious,” he breathed out, a little dizzy from the strength of his orgasm. “Oh my god," he said again. Apparently, his mind was stuck on the concept.

Loki's smile was all teeth. “Both statements are true.”

Peter nibbled at the god’s ear, relishing the soft sigh it earned him.

“I need to study for my next biochemistry test, but in a couple hours, we should… do something together.”

“I wonder what you have in mind,” Loki purred.

They blinked out of existence before Peter could stick out his tongue at him.

*

At twenty-three, Peter accepted his PhD in bioinformatics during a pompous ceremony that he only attended for May’s pleasure in seeing him with a cap and gown, and Michelle’s delight in taking as many pictures as possible that would, according to her, ‘embarrass the crap out of him’ in a few years.

Loki was there, of course; sleek and elegant in his tailored black suit, sporting the green bow Peter had given him after wearing it as a gift wrap last Christmas. He blushed when Loki winked at him, tugging playfully at the bow. It was all fine by him; he’d gotten Loki to blush just last month, when he’d walked in on his lover clad in lacy black lingerie without the panties but with the garter belts. The high heels had been the cherry on top, but by the time Peter had closed the door, lifted his god off the ground and positioned him at the edge of his writing desk to kneel and eat him thoroughly, he’d all but forgotten about the pointy adornments.

So he winked back. His diploma held loosely in one hand, he waved at Tony with the other.

Tony may have aged visibly in the seven years since Peter had confessed his love, but he didn’t look any less handsome than when Peter had walked into his workshop that day. Be it in rags or in a suit, hair completely messed up or artfully styled, laughing or earnest, Tony Stark would always be the dashing man he’d first loved.

His heart didn’t ache as he left the center stage and shook hands with him. It only beat a little faster when his former mentor pulled him into a hug.

“Congratulations, kid. I knew you would make it.”

They stepped back at the same time and locked gazes. Still no heartache. Peter smiled. It was warm and honest, the kind of smile that Loki nurtured and loved.

“Thank you for being there.”

He didn’t sound sad, but to Peter’s surprise, _Tony_ looked sad. It was brief, and Peter would have believed it to be but a figment of his imagination, but Tony laid a hand on his shoulder and sighed, his eyes just a little tight at the corners.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be… who you wanted me to be.”

Peter’s heart sank. “You don’t have to apologize for that. Really.”

“I know I’ve made you very sad for a while, kid, but I- I didn’t know what to do.”

“So you pretended it never happened.” Peter wasn’t sure if he felt angry, or merely sad as well. “And you choose tonight of all nights to bring this up?”

Tony arched a brow. “I thought you would appreciate a distraction from all the… ceremony?”

“Not _that_ kind of distraction,” Peter snarled.

Loki was really rubbing off of him, he thought, watching as a mixture of confusion and amusement played on Tony’s features.

“I- _Fuck,_ I’m bad at this, aren’t?” his mentor said at last, awkwardly patting his shoulder. “I’m just… shitty at making things right. I know I am.”

Peter sighed. “It’s fine, Tony. I’m over it.”

Tony ran his hand through his hair (artfully styled). “I know you are, kid. I mean, come on, I’ve seen you with him, and I’m not irreplaceable.” He rubbed at the back of his neck, his crooked smile in place. “What I’m trying to say, and not very well it seems, is that I- I just wished it hadn’t made you so sad- that I- that I hadn’t made you so sad. I could- could never lo- like you like that, but I do want you to be happy. And Loki makes you happy; a blind man could see that.”

Peter patted the hand on his shoulder. Tony indeed had never been good at apologies, but at least he tried… even if he had a horrible sense of timing.

“It’s not your fault,” he said, willing his heartbeat to slow down. Love indeed had a mind of its own, to still torment it in that fashion after all these years. “You can’t control who you love, and who you don’t.”

“You can’t,” Tony agreed, still with that sad look in his eyes.

Would someone ever love him like Peter would have, had Loki not come into his life and curled up into that warm place in his heart?

“I think your Aunt and your friend have seen enough of you,” Loki said from behind him, his cool hand replacing Tony’s on his shoulder. “Would you like to leave this place?”

Peter twisted his head around and nuzzled his neck.

“ _Please_.”

Loki kissed him lightly on the lips. “You always ask so nicely.” Then he chuckled and looked over Peter’s shoulder. “Enjoy the rest of your evening, Stark.”

They teleported back into their house. It lay by a cliff, its unusual stark-like structure a wonder of architecture kept in place by magic-imbued technology.

They didn’t speak for a long time, too busy mapping each other’s body through their clothes, and then under them, kissing and licking and worshiping with familiar touches the most sensitive places only regular lovemaking would expose. They ended up on the balcony overlooking the sea, with Peter sitting on the marble bench, Loki riding him like only the god could, hard and fast and without any visible strain. In spite of having seen and felt his lover bounce on his cock many times before, Peter felt his breath catch at the sight. He now lasted longer than he used to, but still he felt the pleasure crest incredibly fast, wave upon wave of sensual delight that eventually tipped him over the edge. And while he fell, he stared at the god who'd become such a vital part of his life. 

Loki was sublime, making love to him. He was always otherworldly beautiful, but with the sea tracing wings at his back and the starry sky blending in with his hair, he felt infinite at the tip of Peter’s trembling fingers.

He felt infinite in his chest, filling his heart with more love it could possibly hold.

Joy rushed through him as Loki cupped his chin and, now rocking his narrow hips in slow, sensual circles, caught his lips in a searing kiss.

“I love you, little one.”

Peter came then, Loki’s name on his lips. Love was not something he could ever control or entirely understand, but not knowing was fine.

Knowing that Loki loved him was more than enough.

“I love you too, god mine.”


End file.
